The Princess (Княжна)

Conjured by the perfumer Fabrice Pellegrin (the nose behind many Diptiqye, some Killian and Aedas de Venustas perfumes among others), The Princess is a fruity chypre that was always intended to have a decidedly Eastern gourmet tinge. The first impression you get from it is just how juicy, ripe and aqueous the fruits smell - a mixture of orange, grapefruit, bergamot and lychee - but it’s the layering of the musk and the jasmine that really provides the idea of the far east and of delicately hued blossom billowing in the wind. The vanilla in the base also adds a recognisable sweetness to what could otherwise be a quite fleeting perfume.

Even though there are many notes listed, to me this is a lovely mélange of rose and peach. I don’t get much citrus at all. If you enjoy rose fragrances but not green rose fragrances, this could be for you. I also think if you like Lancôme midnight rose you might enjoy this but it is not similar to that fragrance. It’s just the fruit and rose accord that I really love.

I smelled a sample of this; it's a shame it was discontinued, I might have been tempted to purchase given the price (it's cheap, at least when purchased from Bloom), the bottle (gloriously OTT) and its surprising wearability. It's a lovely warm fruity scent, so sweet it's almost cakey; I kept getting a sudden chilliness I couldn't pin down until I realised it was reminding me of the vanilla flavoured toothpaste I use lately since I can't stand the strength of mint. It's the exact same vanilla, very clean and bright, not much like the dirty ambery ones you sometimes get, but I imagine that to others it will be less directly evocative of the bathroom sink. There's definitely times when this gets a bit little-girlish, especially in some of the fruit notes, which is probably why I wouldn't really have been able to wear it regularly after all. But in some ways that's less because I'm too old for it, and more because I'm not mature enough to pull it off.